Saturday, January 13, 2007

During the Christmas holidays I was back home in my English diocese of Hexham and Newcastle. Dark rumours abound of a growing obsession with Medjugorje. I even heard tell of one Charismatic Medj-Head among the clergy who has even been preaching sermons from the pulpit denouncing members of his congregation who doubt the authenticity of the alleged appearances as "unbelievers". Apparently a real hysteria for Medjugorje has built up among the laity and certain of the clergy in the diocese and Priests are deterred from preaching even caution concerning these claims for fear of the response. The more I hear about Medjugorje the more convinced I become that it is either diabolical or fraudulent. Anyway, I was surfing yesterday and I came across this piece by Cardinal Ottaviani warning against enthusiasms of this kind and I thought it might be a good idea to put a link to it on the blog.